Found A Japan Candy Box

Tuesday, September 29th, 2015

I’m the queen of boxes! I just received some goodies from the Japan Candy Box. Yes, that’s happiness! If you follow my blog you might have noticed that I received and sent quite a few boxes over the period of my blog life (since January 2015). I should change my blog name to Found A Box. What do you think?

I know I’m such a lucky girl, right?! Let me explain to you what the Japan Candy Box – my fifth box – is and how you can get one, too.

I was organising a bloggers picnic end of August and I was looking for sponsors. I found the Japan Candy Box and they offered to provide some awesome sweets for the bloggers’ goodie bags. On top of that they asked me if I wanted to try their subscription model. Yes, please! So I received the box above. Do you know that feeling of receiving a box and you don’t know what’s inside? I love the concept. I tried all the sweets but I also shared them with my colleagues who asked me a lot of questions. But most of all, they really enjoyed the experience of tasting unknown sweets. I highly recommend sharing your box with friends and colleagues. It’s so much more fun discovering unknown territories together. A lot of the sweets were quite sour and we couldn’t stop eating them and laughing about our strange faces we had to pull.

You could receive a box each month if you want to. I would love to tell you what my favourite sweets were but they’re all gone. I think I didn’t try a few because they mystically disappeared before I could take them with me to work. I think they ended up in my boyfriend’s tummy.

So, I told you all about the taste of and the fun with the Japan Candy Box. Take part in the below competition and get yourself a sweet treat, too. Anyone in the world can take part. Have fun!

Found A New Obsession With Duvet Covers

Sunday, September 27th, 2015

It’s the perfect time of the year to have an obsession with duvet covers. I can’t wait to cosy up in bed after a long exhausting day at work. Don’t you feel the same?

When it comes to duvet covers it’s quite hard to decide what I’m going for. Although I love all things white I can’t have white duvet covers. They look great for photos but are not very practical for real life. Having said that I haven’t even tried white duvet covers, oh dear. Maybe I should try it out before I judge it. However, back to what my favourite duvet covers (situations) are. I divided them into three groups.

MODERN
I really love modern patterns on duvet covers. I don’t know what it is but shapes like triangles, lines, dots etc. make me very happy. I definitely prefer modern patterns over only one image on duvet covers. One image reminds me a little bit of my childhood where I had an image of a unicorn on it. Don’t misunderstand me I loved it very much but I’m a grown up now (oh, I just realised I’m wearing a unicorn jumper…). A great example of modern duvet covers is the designs by Vanessa Quijano who I mentioned on my blog before.

MESSY
There is something adorable when a bed is a little bit messy. It always looks like an invitation. Come and relax a little bit in this bed. When your bed is perfectly made you don’t want to touch it until you’re going to bed properly. I’m a strong believer in power naps so I love to have an inviting bed.

COSY
Cosy kind of goes hand in hand with messy. It’s all about the environment. I love fairy lights if they’re not too tacky. It’s also the perfect time to light some candles and grab a book to read in bed. When I choose duvet covers I mostly go for one or two colours. Grey and rose are my favourite colours at the moment. Only if the colours on the duvet covers are wisely chosen – like the example on the top left corner – I make an exception. At the moment, I actually have duvet covers with deers on it, similar to the ones from Yorkshire Linen below.

Phew, writing this blog post makes me want to go back to bed right now. What a great temptation since I am at home.

How much do you care about your duvet covers? What’s your obsession?

x

*This post is kindly sponsored by Yorkshire Linen. The content idea and copy was not influenced and reflect my own opinion.

Found A Snapshot: Travel Perspective

Thursday, September 24th, 2015

Yesterday I went through my travel photos from the time I lived in Singapore and I found the above snapshot. I was standing on this small footbridge on the little island Batam, Indonesia, and discovered a hole. The water through the hole looked beautifully turquoise.

When I found this photo I thought about the time abroad and the traveling I’ve done so far. Only recently I wrote a blog post about post-holiday blues and I said I’m actually happy it’s autumn and I’m at home. I’m still happy but when I looked at the photos I felt a little nostalgic; in a very good way though.

I’m glad I already had the chance to travel around (parts of) the world for a couple of months. More and more friends or colleagues decide to take off a couple of months to go traveling. It seems to be a thing at the moment and I think it’s great. I know it looks sometimes too good to be true but I believe it’s not as impossible as you think. Yes, you need a little bit of savings but South East Asian’s countries are quite cheap to survive, for example. And you don’t have to travel a year either. If you feel like going away why not for 3 months?! Best times are before or right after uni and when you’re changing jobs. Or, when you decide to just quit your job. You can figure out afterwards what you’re going to do. There are no rules, and you know that.

Traveling for 2-3 months were really fulfilling for me. I haven’t traveled the world yet and I hope to do that over all the upcoming years and decades but I’ve experienced the life of a traveler a little bit already.

Found Out How To Be More Creative On Twitter

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015

Two weeks ago I wrote a blog post for Louise’s The What Now Blog. I really love her blog – blogroll potential for October by the way – and it was a pleasure being featured. I thought you might be interested in the subject, too, and re-posted the content on Found Some Paper. Although you know me already I thought I keep the introduction since it does tell you a little more about my professional life.

I’m Uli, a German living in London. I’ve worked in a variety of industries such as PR, Film and Photo Production, Social Media, Digital and Advertising and have recently started to co-organise events for Freelancers, Creatives, Entrepreneurs and Bloggers with ToandTO.

I started my blog Found Some Paper in January 2015 where I take readers on my personal journey of finding creativity. Today, I’m happy to be talking about creative job-hunting on The What Now Blog.

I’m not an expert – I don’t have a professional career in helping people finding a job, but what I have is a lot of experience applying for jobs in different stages of my life, in different countries and in different situations. There are many job-hunting platforms that I could talk about but today I’m going to stick to the most successful social media tool in my own career so far – Twitter.

For some of you Twitter might be familiar, others may know Twitter but have no use for it and then there are people who don’t really have a clue about Twitter and of its possibilities. Wherever you see yourself, I hope I can give you some tips on how to use Twitter for your future job hunting.

TWITTER BASICS. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE …

1. An appealing profile image and header photo

2. An interesting bio

3. At least a few followers!

4. Good content, e.g. articles relevant to your industry

CREATIVE THOUGHT STARTERS:

Do Your Research

Probably the most boring part of your job hunt but you can be quite creative in your approach. Research companies and people in the industry. I often find these people by clicking on someone’s Twitter followers or using specific hashtags like #advertising.

Alternative: If you’re looking for a job in your field use Google Maps to find companies in your city, e.g. ‘social media company’; once you have the names of the companies you can search for them on Twitter.

Content

You might think no one reads your tweets but it’s a vicious circle: the more you think about the content you put out there the more people will follow you because they see how creative and diverse your content is. Share interesting articles or start a conversation about a specific topic.

Networking

That’s the best part of Twitter. You can get in touch with whomever you like but be smart about it. Don’t just ask for a job opportunity straight away. Try to connect over something you have in common or you’re interested in. Meet the person outside of Twitter so they can get to know you.

MY TWITTER JOB HUNT STORY

I found my first job in London by starting a hashtag campaign. I asked people to support me on my job hunt on Twitter by taking a picture of themselves with a piece of paper saying #HireUlrike. I communicated the ‘campaign’ with a video. The Guardian Careers team picked up my approach and a few blog posts followed until I found a great job. You can read more about my campaign in these posts here:

So these are my starter tips for using Twitter in a creative way as part of your job search. I’m happy to continue the conversation either on Twitter or in the comments section below. Feel free to ask me anything and I hope you find these tips useful.

Found A New Monthly Blogroll – September

Sunday, September 20th, 2015

I want to spread more blog love on Found Some Paper. There are so many great blogs out there, and not all of them are that big (yet). So I decided to have a monthly blogroll. I’m going to introduce you to three blogs each month and explain briefly why I love them. Here you go!

This blog was recently started by my lovely friend Maxine. We met a couple of years ago through couchsurfing in London, then she moved to Columbia and I moved to Singapore. We both came back to London and discovered we want to do something creative together; that’s when we organised the paper flower workshop earlier this year.

She finally started a blog with another friend and A Handful of Creativity was born. I like the way Maxine thinks. It’s a mix of making other people happy, e.g. with her 100 Days 100 Letters project, and making the most out of being creative. She made the triangle flower photobooth frame for the Bloggers Picnic and brought her typewriter to the event in order to create some inspiring postcards. How cool is that?! I don’t want to tell you more because you should check out her blog and follow her. She always runs exciting projects. Join her latest project #7daysofyes here.

One of the first blogs I really really enjoyed reading. I love Sophie’s clean and straight-forward thinking and you can see that everywhere on her blog. If I have to recommend a minimalist blog I would choose hers straight away. Her blog posts are never too long and her content really appeals to me. I can always take away something from a blog post. I’ve bought books she recommended and most of all I like that she started her own business. I love reading her business blog posts to get some inspiration for starting something on my own. I’m sure you’ll be inspired by her, too.

I really want to get into creating collages but I’m not even near the actual execution. I haven’t really done anything (yet). BUT I’m having a lot of peeks at Laura’s blog and I’m always excited to see a new collage of hers. I love that everything is so colourful on her blog. Whenever I need a bit of cheering up in terms of creativity I know where to go – I know Cardboardcities will inspire me. If I ever need a collage artist I would definitely hire her and I would be so excited to see what she comes up with. So if you feel a little down and uninspired head over to Laura’s blog.

Found Illustrator And Animator Rachel Ryle

Thursday, September 17th, 2015

I’m getting more and more obsessed with Instagram. It’s a fantastic platform and I’ve never connected with so many talented people before. It’s such an inspiration.

One day I came across the illustrator and animator Rachel Ryle. Her content on Instagram is quite unique. I listened to her story on the Being Boss podcast and found out that she left her job shortly after she animated her illustrations and published them on Instagram – I call this the power of community!

I just love how Rachel Ryle thinks. Her art has a very fresh perspective and I haven’t seen anything similar so far. It looks very easy but as she mentioned in the Being Boss podcast she was spending hours and hours after her full-time job to animate those little 15 seconds films. Sometimes she didn’t go to bed before 4 am. I not only like her style and her creativity I also think she has a great entrepreneurial mind. She worked hard to get where she is right now and half a million followers on Instagram speak for themselves.

UPDATE: I scheduled this blog post for today and just found out yesterday that her Instagram account was hacked. What a bad coincidence?! So I won’t be able to show you lots of Instgram examples but you still can check out her website where she shows some of her work. I’m really gutted that someone hacked her account. I hope she’ll re-post a lot of her work soon.

Found A Stunning Video Of The Bloggers Picnic

Tuesday, September 15th, 2015

It’s finally here! The video of the bloggers picnic. I really love it and I hope you feel the same.

If you’re new to my blog let me quickly recap why I’m so excited about this video. End of August I organised my first blogger event in a park in London. If you want to see more photos go to my previous blog post. It was a great mix of some awesome bloggers, supporting friends and exciting brands who made the picnic unforgettable.

Found 5 Tips To Beat Your Post-Holiday Blues

Saturday, September 12th, 2015

Let’s face it, holidays for this year are pretty much over. Or is there someone going on holidays this month or the next? Don’t tell me because I don’t want to know it (just kidding… actually… don’t dare to tell me!!). You might be sad about the fact that there’s nothing left to look forward to. Your sad feelings have a name: post-holiday blues. It does sound a bit jazzy and if you put some Jazz music on right now I’m sure this feeling would get stronger.

I’m such a lucky girl though because I got sent a package again. Yes, again! Do you remember the #EmergencyHappiness box? Well, this time Jet2holidays made me happy by sending me a box full of little things reminding me of my holidays – although this year I didn’t have the usual beach holiday. You might have seen on the blog that I went to Iceland and Swedenthis year. I found a moisturiser, some fake tan, sweets, a postcard (this reminded me of The Letter Project), and a £10 Pizza Express voucher in the Jet2holidays box. Receiving a box like that truly helps me overcoming my post-holiday blues.

I’d suggest everyone should get a post-holiday blues box, don’t you think? Okay, if that’s not possible here are 5 tips to beat your post-holiday blues.

Get more flowers in your house!
I think flowers bring a little holiday flair to your home. They’re just so pretty there is no way they can make you unhappy.

Make a photo album!
Hands up, who has a photo album at home which wasn’t done by your mum? It’s time to print out all your fantastic memories and stick them into a physical album.

Write a postcard to a friend or family member!
Maybe I’m too much in The Letter Project mood but wouldn’t it be great to send a postcard to someone special?! There is never time to do that during holidays so now is the time.

Go and treat yourself to a nice restaurant!
I love Vietnamese food and luckily I live around many Vietnamese restaurants. Every time I go it reminds me a little of my travels to Vietnam. Great memories!

Get a professional massage!
This is actually on my list. I always ask myself why I only treat myself to a massage when I’m on holidays. It might be a bit more expensive than somewhere else but you only get one in a month and not 10 in two weeks so that should be fine.

Found The Letter Project

Thursday, September 10th, 2015

When was the last time you wrote a letter? I bet you can’t remember. I understand it’s quite a hassle to write a letter, maybe even to make it pretty and then to send it to a friend compared to an email, a Snapchat, or a Whatsapp message.

I’m not saying I’ll make it less a hassle for you but I want to motivate you to get back to it, with The Letter Project. I already mentioned a few projects around writing letters at the very early days of my blog. Since then I have not stopped thinking about it and even sent two letters to my lovely friends in Germany. It’s not enough though. I really want to send more letters. I think it makes the receiver happy and it gives me the opportunity to be creative.

Everyone (you don’t have to be a blogger by the way) will get a pen pal. YAY!

Send your letter by the 20th October 2015

Don’t forget to show us a picture when you receive/send your letter

I actually found an inspiration for The Letter Project. Gude from The Paperdashery got in touch with me and she just started her stationery brand. Part of her dreamy business is to create and send beautiful letters and packages. Whatever you need to ‘make’ your own letter you can find it in her shop. You probably noticed by now that I talk a lot about creating a letter. For me it’s not only about writing a few lines and sending it to someone, it’s an art itself. If I send a letter to a friend I want it to be special. When they open the letter they’re going to have an experience, a moment of happiness.

I found The Paperdashery’s Pinterest boardsvery inspirational so make sure you check them out. Gude will be also here (in the comments section) if you need any inspiration or have any questions about creating your letter. In order to get to know her a little better here are some questions for Gude.

Why did you start The Paperdashery?I am a total stationery addict and also a keen snail-mailer with loads of fantastic pen pals, so this seemed the perfect way to combine my love of paper goods with happy mail (it also means I never run out of washi tape)!

What makes your business unique?I truly believe in the positive power of happy mail. We can make the world a better place by sending love to each other. I’ve set up the #MamaMail project (happy mail for new mums) at The Paperdashery to do just that. It’s a free service and all mamas who sign up get a discount code as a thank you for taking part.

How do you stay creative?I like to be creative with the little things in life – making an origami card for a friend’s birthday, taking a photo of something I find beautiful in nature, I even find an absurd amount of pleasure in wrapping gifts (and orders)! I am inspired every day by my amazing Instagram feed – there is SO much talent out there from bloggers and crafters to artists and photographers. And my boys (aged 3 & 4) love sticking, cutting, painting and constructing as much as I do. They are fearless in their creative projects and are always keen to try out new materials and ideas, which means I feel free to experiment too without judgement or criticism.

I hope we get a few people together from all over the world. Gude and I are already two. Let’s do it!

Are you participating in The Letter Project?

x

PS: If you want to get anything from The Paperdashery shop you can use the code foundsomepaper to get 20% off till the end of September. Happy creating!

*This is not a sponsored post but a collaboration with a fellow blogger. I love supporting new businesses and I’m happy to promote these if they’re relevant for my blog.

Found ToandTO – Events For Creative People

Monday, September 7th, 2015

I have mentioned it on my blog and Twitter before and finally here’s the announcement. I teamed up with ToandTO to organise a few awesome events for creative people. ToandTO have already hosted a number of events for illustrators, designers, and everyone who was interested in living a more creative life. Have a look at ToandTO’s previous events here to get a better picture.

Pam, the co-founder of ToandTO, got in touch with me after he discovered my blog. I’m glad he understood the message of my blog immediately and thought we might form a good team. He was absolutely right. For a few weeks now we have met up at least once a week to plan the upcoming events. Because bloggers are highly engaging people with many creative attributes such as photography, writing, content creation, web design and much more in order to create their blogs, these events are also for you. Whatever profession or passion you have, we want to welcome bloggers to the world of creativity and offer a place to connect with other like-minded people.

We love the idea of speed networking and try to make it part of every event we’re organising. In a nutshell, there are three main reasons why you should attend these forthcoming events:

Get to know other people and share your thoughts and ideas with them

Get inspired by the speakers and talents we select for each event

Have fun and enjoy the atmosphere of a creative environment

I love being creative and I love talking about creativity on my blog. I’m even happier now to host future meet-ups which are all about connecting people and spreading the love. It’s a perfect combination of an online and offline world, don’t you think?

I won’t go into detail now about what the next event will be because I want you to go to the website and have a look around! Make sure you put the events in your diary and sign up as soon as we release the tickets.

ME

Welcome to my blog! I'm glad you're here because this is the right place to get inspired. Together we can live a more creative life and discover the curious world of art and design.
I'm Uli & if you want to collaborate with me, send me an email at uli@foundsomepaper.com.